OUR FOUNDER - W.L. WILMSHURST (1867-1939) was born in Chichester but moved to Huddersfield to become a
solicitor.
Wilmshurst was a modern Christian mystic as he frequently indicated in his
writings. For instance he wrote:

'At the
centre of ourselves, deeper than any dissecting knife can reach or than any
physiological investigation can fathom, lies buried the "vital and
immortal principle" the "glimmering ray" that affiliates us to
the Divine Centre of all life.' His prime purpose was to achieve union with God
through Christ.

Wilmshurst believed passionately
that the masonic ritual had a deep basis in mysticism. He was sure that its
fellowship, its charitable works and even its promotion of a basic morality
were entirely incidental to its primary purpose. He was convinced that behind
all this: 'there exists the framework of a scheme of initiation into that
higher path of life where alone the secrets and mysteries of our being are to
be learned.'

He thought that this deeper and more vital arcana of the Craft had been
'deliberately veiled' in a mass of superficial moral teaching. 'Brethren,' he
wrote, 'it is just this elusiveness, these intentional enigmas, this purposed
puzzle language, that are intended to put us on the scent of something deeper
than the words themselves convey.' He felt that: 'part of the purpose of all
initiation was, and still is, to educate the mind in penetrating the outward
shell of all phenomena.'

He was convinced that the majority
of Masons have no idea of the true purpose of the masonic ritual and are
degrading it by performing it in a perfunctory manner as some form of
entertainment before a convivial meal, rather than using it as a vital tool for
spiritual regeneration. He lamented that: 'The modern mason, however high in
titular rank is as little qualified to understand the subject as the man who
has never entered a lodge.' He felt that most of us, although we have been
through the ceremonies of Initiation, Passing and Raising remain, to all
intents and purposes "uninitiated Initiates" since most of us do not
have a deep understanding of what we have gone through at all and it has made
no lasting change to us.
He ridiculed the belief that Masonry is just a simple system of basic morality.
He wrote:

'It
is absurd to think that a vast organisation like Masonry was ordained merely to
teach to grown up men of the world the symbolic meaning of a few simple
builders tools or to impress upon us such elementary virtues as temperance and
justice the children of every village school are taught such things; or to
enforce such simple principles of morals as brotherly love which every church
and every religion teaches.' He
compared the three Degrees of Craft Masonry to the three stages of
philosophical mysticism:

Purification

Illumination -
Education

Perfection - Union

Wilmshurst's presidential address
to the Masonic Study Society in 1937 was entitled: 'The Masonic Ritual as a
Field for Study.' He began in the metaphor of one from a cloth town:

'my whole purpose
is to indicate what is so little recognised, that our ritual has a deep basis
of occultism and that beneath the weft of ethical teaching and the often simple
allegory and symbolism which alone meet the ear and eye of the average Mason,
there lies a warp of much deeper scientific teaching and references to matters
that form, and have always formed, the province of the mystic and the
occultist, using the latter word in its best and worthiest sense'

He went on:

'The real lodge
referred to throughout our rituals is our own individual personalities, and if
we interpret our doctrine in the light of this fact we shall find that it
reveals an entirely new aspect of the purpose of our Craft.'

As J.S.M. Ward wrote in his obituary for the Masonic Study Society in 1939:

'It is as an exponent of the mystical meaning of Freemasonry that he will ever
be remembered [ ] Masonic scholars and students sometimes allow their zeal
for their pet theories to out-run the brotherly affection they should feel for
their fellow masons, but not so Wilmshurst. I never remember him saying a harsh
or unkind word about any other masonic authority, however much his opinions
might differ, and it was remarkable how he managed to win the affection of all
who truly knew him.'